RE: self-ratings vs. market ratings

Not an extremely important point, but I just re-read my earlier message
and realized that my sentence below didn't exactly state what I meant:

	"I myself don't pay much attention to ratings, 
	as my own measures of things & people tend to be
	quite different from most, and therefore not very useful for my
purposes."

I meant that the the *ratings* would not be very useful for my purposes
(at least, not the ratings as I've heard proposed so far.)   I probably
wouldn't have the same values or concerns of those who feel the need to
apply them; I wouldn't judge the material by the same standards (raters
are looking principally to create a means to censor material, and I
myself am not concerned about passive text&graphics.  When Java applets
begin to coerce cybersurfers into complicity, I'll start worrying about
it.)

One more word about automating ratings:

The more automated that filtering becomes, so that the viewer (be it an
adult or a child) requires less and less personal involvement in
evaluating what is appropriate (or even interesting) for themselves, the
more weak & piddly (ignorant & psychologically dependent) those people
could become, falling into the habit of having others - or an automatic
robocop - do their content-filtering for them.   Not a good system to
introduce into a dynamic world-order.  Like all automatic things, it can
encourage intellectual lassitude.  Like all tools, this one can also be
misemployed.

But, of course, surfers can make a cultural decision:  sex&violence?  or
namby-pamby? :>)

    ..
Blanc
One voice among many.

>I meant that the the *ratings* would not be very useful for my purposes
>(at least, not the ratings as I've heard proposed so far.)   I probably
>wouldn't have the same values or concerns of those who feel the need to
>apply them; I wouldn't judge the material by the same standards (raters
>are looking principally to create a means to censor material, and I
>myself am not concerned about passive text&graphics. 

one point about the ratings systems is that they are not simply for
rejecting or approving pages. they might be used to point out "neat
places". now, have you ever gone through a list of "cool links"
anywhere in cyberspace? I suspect such lists are very likely going
to be kept on rating servers in the not-to-distant future.  PICS
is a very flexible architecture and I hope it will be used in many
ingenious ways not previously foreseen.

also, keep in mind that in the short term, ratings refer to web
pages, but in the long term future, I can see them rating all kinds
of other things in cyberspace and the real world. again, PICS supports
this right off the bat. it is not constrained to web pages.

>The more automated that filtering becomes, so that the viewer (be it an
>adult or a child) requires less and less personal involvement in
>evaluating what is appropriate (or even interesting) for themselves, the
>more weak & piddly (ignorant & psychologically dependent) those people
>could become, falling into the habit of having others - or an automatic
>robocop - do their content-filtering for them.

but in a sense, this is what you do whenever you read a book or a
newspaper. you are reading information screened by someone else.
not so much with books that are unique, but you can see how this
applies with like a collection of essays for example. but I agree
with your implications. ratings are not a substitute for personal
judgement. they are meant to be a method to aid thinking, not
to replace it, imho.